Authors: Suzette Haden Elgin
“Youall could of course bring in a human teacher,” the man had said, hesitantly, almost as if there were something impolite in the suggestion. “There are specialists that know many things we’ve never seen any need to include in the programs. . :”
Stewart Crain had been firm in his response; Silverweb knew far too much already to suit him. A young woman that’d turned down four young men he’d offered her for husband, one after another, with the same fool reason-she didn’t “choose” to marry? A young woman that’d run away from home to try to join Responsible of Brightwater on her Quest, and had to be sent clear to Castle Airy for the three Grannys there to punish? He’d not have her taught more things she might use as warp or woof for her stubborn and always unexpected behavior; oh, no. He sent the man away, thanking him brusquely for his concern, and that was the end of it. Thereafter, Silverweb relied on the libraries.
But now she did not do even that. When she first began disappearing, slipping away as soon as the mountains of household and garden tasks set her were finished, showing up again only when her absence would be remarked upon, the libraries had been Anne’s first thought. After all, through the brief days of the Jubilee, while the other young ones spent their time at the plays and the fairs, Silverweb had moved inflexible between their rooms and the libraries of Brightwater. But she had not found her daughter among the books. Not in the Castle’s own very respectable room of volumes and microfiches; not in the town library with its banks of machines making available all the books of the world and facsimiles of some from Old Earth; not in the ample and specialized library of the Reverend.
And then she had had a thought that she almost dared not entertain: was it possible Silverweb was slipping away to meet some young man? Anne would of been obliged to make a show of stern disapproval for that, but in her heart she’d of been overjoyed. A girl not married at Silverweb’s age, and showing no sign of any interest in the state, was a rare creature on Ozark. Anne didn’t mind having a rare creature about, precisely, but she’d rather have had grandchildren, and the boys were still far too young to provide them.
She set the servingmaids, a few that she knew to be trustworthy, to watching, then. And they came back with just the news she’d feared. There was not, so far as any of them could find out, a young man in the picture.
At last, when she’d made up her mind to confront Silverweb and demand an explanation-an awkward thing at her age, and with her behavior so sickeningly perfect that it allowed no smallest chink for objection-the mystery was solved for her. Among the Castle staff there was a very old woman, well into her nineties, that’d been there all her life, born in the bedroom of her mother, also a McDaniels servingmaid. She was not expected to do anything now but sit and rock; though she insisted she could still outwork any woman in the Castle, she made no attempt to prove it.
Joan of Smith came to Anne’s workroom to tell her, leaning on the cane she swore she didn’t need-and would
not
have needed if she’d allowed modern magic to help her. She had an awesome stubbornness.
“I know where the young miss has been getting herself to, my lady,” said Joan of Smith. “A long walk it was for me, but I checked before I came-and sure enough, there she was.”
Anne stood up, heedless of the yarns slipping off her lap onto the rug, asking, “Well,
where?
Not in this Castle, surely!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Joan. “Right here in this Castle. She’s not a child to go gallivanting, not Miss Silverweb.”
“But we looked everywhere-we even sent staff up to the attics, and they found her there once or twice fooling with bits of glass, but not after that . . . We looked this Castle up, down, and sideways!”
“Missus,” said Joan of Smith, “there’s a place you didn’t look. I’ve been here all my life, and I’ve seen it only once or twice, and would of had no idea what it was intended for. But my mother’d heard of it from her mother . . . My lady, there’s a room beyond the attics.”
“Joan!” Anne of Brightwater settled the old lady into a chair and saw her comfortable, fussing over her till she was sure the pillows at her back were as she liked them, and talking the whole time. “I have not been here all my life, for sure, but I’ve been here a considerable number of years, and I have been over every inch of this Castle. There’s no room beyond the attics-there’s no `beyond the attics’ at all!”
“Oh, yes, Missus, there is. A few of the maids know of it, those as are truly honest about their work; they clean it once a year. But it never entered their heads the young miss’d go there, seeing as how they’re scared to death of the place their own selves. Come cleaning time, they draw lots for who’ll do the job, and it’s always two of ‘em, and garlic in both their pockets. Ninnies!”
“Well!” Anne sank down in a chair and pulled it close to Joan’s, whose ears were no longer what they had been. “So there’s a secret room in my Castle, and everybody knows about it but me, is there? You don’t seem to be afraid of it, Joan of Smith . . You know something the others don’t?”
“As I said, Missus,
I
heard of it from my mother, that heard of it from hers. In my grandmother’s day-that’d be more than a hundred and fifty years back, mind-the Magicians were few and the Magicians of Rank even fewer. It wasn’t like it is today, ma’am. Times there were when a Magician of Rank couldn’t come when you sent for him, good will or not-even such a one can’t be in two places at once, and it was a matter of choosing among the emergencies which was the worst. That left only the Grannys-and
they
were not so many in those days, either!-to do all the healing. And so it would sometimes come about that there’d be somebody taken sick as was
catching,
and it something the Granny couldn’t manage, and might could be days before anyone from the higher ranks could come to the Castle. And a person like that, they put ‘em up in the room back beyond the attics, with just a Granny to nurse them-or sometimes just a willing woman, if no Granny was to hand either. And there they stayed, for so long as was needful. It’s a tiny bit of a room, Missus. Just a
tiny
one!”
“And you’ve been up there?” marveled Anne, staring at the aged woman with little but a quaver left for a voice, all bones and wrinkles, and a fine trembling to both her hands if she didn’t keep them clutched tight to her cane. “Up to the
attics?
”
“I didn’t care to disappoint you, Missus,” said Joan. “If the room’d shown no signs of anybody being there, you see, I’d of said nothing. Hate to spoil the only thing that gives the young females on the staff any pleasure at spring cleaning. So I checked, first.”
“Law!” said Anne of Brightwater. “Well, I thank you . . . And what’s she got up there? A lovers’ bower? A . . . I don’t have any guesses, Joan; what is it? A place to get away from her brothers, that’s clear, and nobody could fault her for
that
. But is there more to it?”
“You’d best go see for your own self, dear lady,” said the old woman, giving a wave of the cane. “That’d be the way.”
“I’m willing; tell me how to get there.”
“Go all through the attics, to the furthest one, yonder on the east tower. . .”
“Yes?”
“There you’ll find a old blanket tacked up on the wall. Looks like somebody just put it there to cover might could be a cracked place, or a stain where rain’d got in. Tacked just at the top corners, it is. You pull that aside, and back of it you’ll find a kindly hall about wide enough for one person with her elbows pulled in real careful. And the room’s at the end of that.”
“I’ve seen that old blanket!” Anne declared. “I never thought . . . Isn’t there a trunk pushed up against it?”
“Used to be. But not this moment. I expect Miss Silverweb shoves that trunk back there when she comes downstairs.”
“Do the boys know about this room?”
The old lady chuckled. “Think the women as keep this Castle are pure fools, Missus?” she demanded. “
No
male person-less he was too sick to know where he was!-has ever known about that room. Bad enough that people have died in there, and people laid moaning while they waited for help. Bad enough with all the bedclothes having to be carried out and burned out behind the stables, right down to the mattress-
none
of us had ary interest, my lady, in little boys as would think it fearsome fun to wrap up in bedsheets and hide in the old wardrobe in there, and jump out at you when you went in to clear away the dust! No, no; the boys have no least notion.”
“Then how did Silverweb find out, when even I don’t know?”
“Ah, Missus,” said Joan of Smith, “I’ll not speak to that question. What a woman can do provided she’s driven sufficientlynow that’s been a wonder since the beginning of time. Every inch, as you put it, the youngun must of searched-just every inch! And not to be fooled by holes with a blanket hung over ‘em, either. As I said-you’d best see for yourself.”
Anne stood up and hesitated, half afraid to go see what her tall grave daughter was up to, wholly afraid not to, and Joan of Smith said, “The reason for that blanket and trunk, you see, that was so as nobody’d wander into there by mistake and catch whatever it was the person sick there had at the time. You see how that would be.”
Anne saw. “You sit here and rest,” she told Joan, “just as long as you fancy it. Up to the attics, at your age, and all those stairs! I’d fuss at you if I had the time, Joan of Smith, I declare I wouldbut I’m going up to see what’s to be seen, before she comes down.”
“That’s wise,” said the other. “And I can climb as many stairs as you can, or any other soul in this Castle, you keep that in mind, ma’am! I’m no invalid, and I’ll be climbing stairs here when-”
Anne knew from experience that this would go on a long time before the old lady wound down at last and was satisfied with her disclaimers. She leaned over and patted the frail hands holding the battered cane-absolutely, she must be made to have a new one, if they had to send in the Grannys to make her give in to the change, this one was falling to pieces and would give her a broken hip one of these days!-and she slipped out and left her still at it, and headed for the eastmost attic.
The room was there; she found it easily enough. She found her daughter, too. Three knocks she made at the door, clucking her tongue at the sheen it had-she knew how many coats of polish that meant, and how much rubbing, and the servingmaids had never in a million years done
that,
or her name wasn’t Anne of Brightwater-and there’d been no answer. She’d hesitated; a person of Silverweb’s age had a right to her privacy, and clearly this was a very private place. Then her mother’s concern had triumphed over her manners and she’d turned the knob and stepped inside, saying smartly, “Silverweb?” so the girl couldn’t claim she’d been sneaking up on her.
It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d come in with a brass band; she saw that at once. She went forward to where her daughter was kneeling, tiptoeing for no reason that she understood, and said the name again. Silverweb neither saw her nor heard her. Not at all.
Anne ran, then. Down the tiny hall, scraping her arm painfully on its walls in her panic, through all the attics one after another, down the flights of stairs-and came to a full stop. At the bottom of the first staircase, Joan of Smith stood waiting for her; that meant three flights the old lady had toiled up
again
this day. She would be weary and aching tonight, and Anne thought distractedly that she had to remember to have someone see to her.
“Found her, did you?”
“Yes, I did-and I don’t like it!”
“Thought you wouldn’t, child; that’s why I’m here.”
“What will I
do?
” She knew she looked foolish, wringing her hands and rubbing at her scraped arm-if she hadn’t Joan would never have called her “child”-but she didn’t care. She was frightened.
“Do? You can leave her be,” said Joan. “You’re Missus of this Castle, and a fine lady, as it’s a privilege to serve under. You’re mother of nine, and my womb never quickened- Aye, I’ll go virgin to my grave, if you want to know the truth of it! Never could bear the idea of a man . . . doing as they do. But I have been walking this earth more years than you and all your babes combined, and I know a thing or two. Anne of Brightwater-leave her be.”
Anne leaned against the wall, too weak suddenly to support herself.
“Oh, Joan,” she wailed, “it’s not natural! You know what it is, don’t you? You saw her-you know what it is?”
“
Rapture,
it’s called,” said Joan calmly. “And ecstasy, sometimes. I do believe rapture has a better sound to it, though I’ve always thought both were ugly words.”
“And you say leave her be?”
“I do.”
“I’ll talk to the Reverend!”
“Do that, and he’ll drive her away,” came the warning. “She would be just as satisfied with a bare cave in the desert, or a hut out in the Wilderness Lands, as she is with that room up there. You care to keep her home, you say nothing at all to the Reverend. I’ve seen him, how he looks sharp at her when she sings in the choir on Sundys; he’s suspicious already, and a word from you about this would be the last dot on the
i
. He wouldn’t tolerate it.”
“But what will become of her? What will she do, where will she go? On Earth she could have gone into what they called a convent, lived in a bare cell and prayed all the days of her life back of bars if she chose to-we’ve no such things here! She will be so terribly alone!”